A Few of My Favorite Things

The Holidays have officially arrived! Christmastime always makes me think of my favorite things (I'm not sure if it's just the nature of the season itself, or if it's because they've converted the Sound of Music song into a Christmas song...), and one of my very favorite things is putting up Christmas decorations. I love, love, love turning on the MoTab, stringing my garland of lights, setting up the nativity, and then turning out the lights and enjoying a warm cup of tea while looking at the sparkling lights. It's just such a peaceful, happy thing.

I'm not one who gets into too much elaborate Christmas decorating (I've made a promise to Jon to limit our Christmas decorations to no more than a couple of boxes), but I do have a couple of pieces that are my absolute favorites and "make" Christmas for me. The first is a simple garland with white lights that I bought before getting married when I wanted to bring some Christmas spirit into my apartment of single girls. I always hang it prominently, and love the way the lights make evergreen shaped shadows on the wall.

The second is my nativity set that I got while in Jerusalem. I actually went to Jerusalem intent on not getting a nativity set (something about it being what everyone else did, and not wanting to be "cliche" ... part of my late-blooming, adolescent need to assert my independence from society :) But, of course, once there I fell in love with a particular beautiful olive wood nativity, and it has truly become my treasured remembrance of that amazing summer. I love pulling it out and thinking of all that Christmas is really about ... the simple assurance of peace that came through the quiet birth of a Baby in Bethlehem.

My goal every year is to invite Christ into my life more during the holidays. This year that seems especially vital as I think of beginning Christmas traditions now as a mother. I'd love to hear more about your "favorite things" that help you to feel the spirit of Christmas both personally and with your children.

What are you thankful for?

I love these Church YouTube videos! This one captured some of my thoughts lately as Thanksgiving is approaching:



Some of the little things I'm thankful for lately are:

• the pitter patter sound James makes as he crawls around the house
• having a husband that I know I can trust completely
• a jogging stroller, and beautiful weather to use it in
• two days off each week to be home
• monitor sitting
• scriptures and prayer

What are you thankful for?

What we've been up to

Dear Blogosphere:

I'm sorry I've been neglecting you ... life has been busy.

In a nutshell, here's some of what we've been up to:

...practicing walking

...practicing baking...

...and just being downright cute!!

Life will calm down soon, right??

Wishfully thinking,
Blogging Me

Jon's Experiment

Since I've gone back to work in the last few weeks, and Jon still hasn't started classes, he's been spending a lot of time at home by himself with James. He's been a fantastic daddy, and I love coming home and hearing about all of their adventures. But, I secretly think that all that time alone with a baby has made him a little more bored than usual at times. For several weeks he decided to start experimenting with a new look. This is how my Jon typically looks:

(isn't he handsome!)

But for several weeks, this is the Jon I've come home to:

Now, I always swore that I wouldn't let my husband grow facial hair, because honestly the thought of kissing that .... But, I'm not going to get into how my personal biases changed and/or stayed the same throughout this experiment, because I'm really curious to get others' opinions about this experiment (don't worry, I'm not going to ask how you'd feel about kissing that face!) Really, the whole point of the "experiment" is that Jon has always wondered if having facial hair would make him look older. He wonders that because someday in the hopefully not too far distant future he will be applying for professorships, and he has this idea that looking older will make him a more likely candidate for a job. So, the question is this (okay, there's actually more than one):
1. Does Jon look older with facial hair?
2. Do you think he's more likely to get hired as a professor with or without the facial hair?

I realize this is a very scientific experiment, not to mention an extremely relevant issue for everyone :) ... but, I'd love to see the polling data all the same, so chime in with your opinion (you can leave a comment, or just cast your vote on the sidebar).

p.s. I think that Jon's influence is wearing off on James, because this is how he did himself up at our recent day at the beach...

(either he can't wait to grow his own beard, or sand tastes much better than I realize!)

3 Weeks and 5 Years later

Well, we survived our marathon vacation to Utah. James was a champ ... no, make that a super-champ. He traveled well, he slept well, and he stole the hearts of all his aunts, uncles, and cousins (if they weren't his already). And though 3 weeks was a very long time to spend on vacation, we decided in the end that it was well worth it to be able to spend quality time with family.

Bonding with his namesake ... there is wisdom passing through the years.

He thought great-grandma Averett's doggy sounds were very funny!

Baby races and cage fights with cousin Marshall :)

The other bonus of being in Utah was that we got to take advantage of the free and willing babysitting. Jon and I stole away for 2 days to celebrate our 5 year anniversary. Yes, that's right, I have been married to the most amazing husband in the world for a whole 5 years!! They've been the best of my life, and I can't wait for 500 more! We celebrated by staying at a lovely little B&B in Moab, Utah and rediscovering our love for hiking together (and for each other, of course). Arches was beautiful - I especially loved our sunset hike to the license-plate-famous Delicate Arch.

If you look real close, you can see Jon down under the arch!

Off to Utah

We're headed to Utah tomorrow. A 14-hour drive and just over 3 weeks with a baby ... are we nuts? Maybe. But we're looking forward to it all the same (we'll see what I'm saying after it's all done!)

Know any good road trip games? How about secrets to keeping a baby happy in the car for a whole day?

Reflections

So I've been having a hard time thinking up things to blog about lately. I don't know what my deal is, but I sit down with the urge to blog and then cannot come up with anything interesting to write ... maybe this is what they call writer's block?

Anyway, in an effort to break through the block I'm going to break out of my "comfort zone" (my mom lectured me for years about the value of doing that, and I try to trust my mother's judgment) and go for some personal reflections. Here goes...

As I get older, I increasingly feel the need to make deeper connections with people - to want to feel like I've touched or been touched by my interactions with others. I guess I see this as the foundation of solid, deep friendships, which is something I've never felt very confident about. I'm fine with meeting people, being friendly, and having a number and variety of "acquaintances," but I feel like my interactions stay right there and rarely deepen into what I would call close "friendships." I'm not really sure what to do about it, but there you have it - one of the burning questions of my life ... how does one move from "acquaintance" to "friend"? Any ideas out there?

Okay, enough therapy (this from the psychologist breaking out of her comfort zone) ... thanks for listening, Blogworld, I'm done now.

(p.s. in case you're wondering ... the picture has nothing much to do with this post, but since I see every post as another opportunity to sneak in a picture of my favorite baby in the world, there it is!)